It’s About Time

A friend who is working on our church history was surprised today to learn that I kept a daily record of every day of the decade of the 1990s. Since I came to pastor the First Baptist Church of Kenner in September of 1990 and stayed for nearly 14 years, that means the 46 “wordless books” which I filled with my nightly journaling are a great repository of information on the church during those years. But under no circumstances would I let anyone see it. Not for years to come. I told him, “I called names. Some of that would be embarrassing to people.”

I told the church when I resigned two years ago about this decade-long journal and said, “Twenty-five years from now, anyone working on the church’s history may read it.” But not until.

I have kept my yearly calendars and promised my friend to go through them and make a few notes on the high points of each year. On Monday, I went through 6 years in an hour. And got an education.

It’s like fast-forwarding your life. You see what you left out of your ministry and what pops up too frequently. I noted, for example, the days I was sick. Back trouble here and flu there. Two or three times a year, several days at a time. But that was in the early years of the 1990s. No more.

Sometime in the mid-90s, I decided to go against the male pattern and find me a doctor. Men, they say, fear doctors and resist going for checkups. But in my mid-50s, I knew it was high time. My new doctor examined me thoroughly and prescribed a regimen of vitamins and minerals, as well as a baby aspirin a day, and pronounced, “I think we have saved you from a heart attack.” Then, I took it one step further.

I got serious about exercise. Instead of the occasional nighttime walk around my block, I stepped off a three mile route from home to the Mississippi River levee and down it and back. Three miles, 45 minutes. Every morning early. Then I bought some small weights and worked up a routine on the rug in front of the fireplace. I suppose we could call them home-made exercises, because I didn’t invite a professional trainer in. I didn’t buy anyone’s video. I just worked up some stretching/lifting/pushing to exercise the various parts of my body. It normally takes about 15 minutes, and often I do it both morning and night. The results were worthwhile.


Over a year or two, I lost 30 pounds and am probably in the best shape of my life. It’s been years since I’ve had lower back problems and almost never have the flu. I am, however, aware that no one knows what processes are at work in the inner organs or the cells of his body. So I pray for God to bless me with health.

I told my “historical” friend that one day I plan for him to point me out as “your 80 year old friend” and have someone say, “You’ve got to be kidding.” He said, “Yeah. He looks ninety.” With friends like this.

Back to the 1990s calendars, I did more visitation than I realized. I did far fewer revivals in our church than I did for other churches. We had a hard time keeping part-time ministerial staffers. And I was focused strongly then, as I am now, on my children and grandchildren. It’s all there in the written records.

On the calendar for April 13, 1996, I had written, “My Dad is 84. I’m so blessed.” Back then, I did not have a clue or even a hope that I would be writing on my 2006 calendar, “Dad is 94.” I’m more blessed than I knew. That April 13 date is also Margaret’s and my anniversary. We married on Dad’s 50th birthday. I told him then we would have a problem on his 100th, because we would be celebrating our Golden Anniversary. It’s beginning to look more and more like that calendar conflict may actually occur.

I bought a watch the other day, a modern-looking thing with only two hands and no numerals. My granddaughters cannot understand why in the world I would want a watch that doesn’t tell time. They will learn in time we are all so time-oriented we almost don’t even need the hour and minute hands. Did you get that? In time they will learn about time.

We tend to lose track of time in this part of the world. Life has slowed to a crawl. Nothing much happens at normal speed any more. The cleanups and rebuildings occur at a snail’s pace. Tuesday morning, April 4, in the eighth month after Katrina, even out here in the driest portion of Jefferson Parish, my neighbors were having a spirited discussion on their front porch about the incomplete job their roofer is doing. The hurricane was August 29. Slow motion. It takes twice as long to get across town in the traffic, no matter when you start. Eating out takes longer because of the longer lines.

A minister of music said this week that since Katrina, his choir is half what it was before. “I’m having a time getting people to choir practice more than once or twice a month,” he said. “They’re just so tired all the time.”

It’s hard to believe it’s almost summer. We’re setting near records every day, with highs in the mid-80s. Where did the winter go? Does anyone remember Christmas? What happened to spring?

One thing I intend to do or try to do is get our New Orleans pastors together with the Mississippi Gulf Coast pastors. What each group has been through is different but alike in so many ways. Tuesday, a group of Christian educators led by Dr. Bill Taylor, retired Sunday School leader of Lifeway, visited us after spending Monday with our Gulfport/Biloxi counterparts. In both cases, they say they have run out of words to describe the devastation they have seen. “And after all this time,” one said. “We thought the cleanup would be farther along by now.” Everyone expects that.

Brad Waggoner from Southern Seminary in Louisville, Topper Reid, a church developer from Birmingham, Ramon and Rosa Martinez, language workers with Lifeway in Nashville, Sharon Smith of Lifeway, and Gail Linam of Dallas Baptist University, joined Dr. Bill Taylor, and they in turn were joined by our Joe and Linda Williams, our NAMB counselors, and Wayne Miller, staff minister at FBC Covington. Freddie Arnold gave them all the five dollar tour this morning, then we had lunch at Don’s Seafood in Metairie and sat around talking for two hours. Someone asked the waitress, Mary, how she had fared during the hurricane. “I lived in Lakeview,” she said. She lost everything. When he suggested we pray for her, she was thrilled and said, “You’re going to make me cry.”

These distinguished leaders are on a fact-finding tour, I suppose we could say, and will be talking with our pastors at Wednesday’s LaPlace meeting. “We are not coming in with a program,” Bill Taylor said. “We’re here to listen and see what the needs are. We have access to resources all over this country.”

I was sifting through some records, trying to finish my taxes and get the whole business to the CPA. A small paper fell out, a note from my soon-to-be 94 year-old father. Dad did what he does best, took a piece of scrap paper and wrote a thought that popped into his head and handed it to me, then probably never thought of it again. “What is time? Look it up and get back to me on this.” Big assignment, Pop. Do this thoroughly and Tulane will give me a doctorate.

Time is the sequence of events, one thing following another. Time is precious. Time’s a-wastin’, Snuffy used to say. There’s a lot more to be said for time. All in good time.

My friend Mary in Baton Rouge was talking to a young man at the store. “What are you going to do with your life?” she asked him. “Some day I’m going to be a missionary,” he said. She asked what that meant, what kind of missionary, and he gave the right answers. Then Mary said, “You know you don’t have to wait to be a missionary. You can tell people about the Lord right here where you are, starting now.” A light went on behind his eyes. It was a new thought to him.

Now is always a good time.